My friend Ed took his one ton van in for an emissions inspection and they would not test it because there was not enough exhaust gas coming out the pipe for them to test. They rolled their mirror around and verified that he had a catalytic converter in place but they refused to inspect him due to the lack of exhaust flow.
It took a few days for us to get together for me to look at it but I finally got time to travel to his place and take a look. I tossed my pit mat down in the dirt beside the van and crawled under to take a quick look.
What I found was a one inch gap between the pipe out of the cat and the muffler. It had rusted completely in two. How they did not spot this with the inspection mirror is a mystery and makes me wonder just what they are inspecting for.
I let him know that I could make a temporary patch there and he could bring it to my shop later for a more permanent repair.
We went to Autozone and bought a 3″ pipe coupler and the one clamp they had that fit. My plan was to slip the coupler over the gap and clamp it down.
I had quite a time getting the old rusty clamp off. I soaked it in WD40 and used a brush to clean the threads. I then worked the rusty nuts back and forth to finally get them off without breaking the clamp. I had to put my jack under the clamp to hold it to keep from bending the pipe as I put torque on the nut.
Once the clamp was off, I noticed that this was a slip connection and that the rear pipe was going to be the same size as the coupling I had just bought. I used Ed’s hacksaw to make several slots in one half of the coupling and used the tongue of his trailer for an anvil to flare it out so it would slip over the rear pipe.
I slipped the coupler over the front pipe and then worked it back over the rear section. I centered it the best I could and installed the new clamp on one side and reused the rusty clamp on the other.
I had him start it up and I checked for leaks. There were some small leaks at the end of each cut but nothing serious. I think I should flow enough gas for him to get his emissions inspection now.